A refrigerator is a device for storing food in a low temperature state and may be configured to be able to preserve food in a frozen state or in a cool state according to the kind of the food that a user wants to store. The inside of the refrigerator is cooled by continuously supplied cold air, in which the cold air is continuously generated by heat exchange with refrigerant according to a cooling cycle that includes compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation processes. The cold air supplied to the inside of the refrigerator is evenly transferred to the inside of the refrigerator by convection so as to store food in the refrigerator at a desired temperature.
Generally, the main body of the refrigerator has a rectangular parallelepiped shape of which the front surface is open, and inside the main body may be a refrigerating compartment and a freezing compartment. Further, the front surface of the main body may be provided with a refrigerating room door and a freezing room door, and a storage space in the refrigerator may be provided with multiple drawers, shelves, receiving boxes, etc., in which various foods may be stored in an optimal condition.
Traditionally, a top mount type of refrigerator, which has a freezing compartment positioned at an upper portion thereof and a refrigerating compartment positioned at a lower portion thereof, has been mainly used. Recently, however, in order to increase convenience for users, a bottom freezer type of refrigerator having a freezing compartment positioned at a lower portion thereof has come into the market. In the case of the bottom freezer type of refrigerator, the refrigerating compartment, which may be more frequently used, is positioned at an upper portion thereof, and the freezing compartment, which may be relatively less frequently used, is positioned at a lower portion, so that a user can conveniently use the refrigerating compartment. However, since the freezing compartment is positioned at the lower portion, the bottom freezer type of refrigerator has a problem in that a user bends his/her back to open the freezing room door and take out items such as ice.
In order to solve such a problem, a refrigerator in which a dispenser for taking out ice is provided at or in a refrigerating compartment door positioned at an upper portion of a bottom freezer type of refrigerator has recently come into the market. In this case, an ice machine for generating ice may be provided on the inside of the refrigerating compartment door or inside the refrigerating compartment itself.
The ice-making schemes of ice machines are classified into an indirect cooling type and a direct cooling type. According to the indirect cooling type, cold air is supplied from an ice machine, an ice-making tray is cooled by forced convection, and thus ice is made from water. According to the direct cooling type, a refrigerant pipe is in contact directly with an ice-making tray or water, so that ice is made. The indirect cooling type is slower than the direct cooling type; the conventional direct cooling type of ice-making scheme is faster than the indirect cooling type of ice-making scheme. However, according to the conventional direct cooling type of ice-making scheme, since a refrigerant pipe is disposed in an ice-making compartment, the structure of the ice-making compartment is complex, the manufacturing process thereof is difficult, and installation of the refrigerant pipe in the ice-making compartment is difficult. Such a difficult manufacturing process reduces productivity, and causes an increase in refrigerator manufacturing costs. In addition, when a refrigerant pipe is disposed inside an ice-making compartment, the storage capacity of the ice-making compartment is reduced by the volume of the pipe.